


To his family, send him

by shadowsong26



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Discussed/referenced character death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsong26/pseuds/shadowsong26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Shmi survived, Obi-Wan brings Luke to safety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To his family, send him

**Author's Note:**

> In all likelihood, there would be much more long-ranging consequences to this AU premise. And those questions are very interesting ones, and I may end up borrowing them for another (much more long-range) fic I have being plotted. However, for the purposes of writing this moment (which I really wanted to write), the events of _Revenge of the Sith_ happened as they did in canon.

_Shmi_

 

I moved back to Mos Espa, after Cliegg died.

Owen and Beru had told me I was welcome to stay, live with them on the farm, but it didn't feel right. _Cliegg_ had been my family, yes, but Owen was older than Anakin. He had been nearly grown when my husband brought me home. We had never really bonded, not enough to compel me to stay. Not when I could choose my own path.

Besides, the _rest_ of my family, I could only track in a city.

Reports from the rest of the galaxy have always been slow to trickle down to Tatooine's cities. The news takes even longer to drift out to the farms. The war never came here, not directly but we heard, from time to time, of the battles.

Of the Jedi.

Thanks to the war, for the first time in over a decade, I had news of my son.

I built a quiet life for myself in Mos Espa, and listened close to reports of the heroic missions of General Anakin Skywalker and the 501st Legion. And, I knew that his life was now everything he'd dreamed ever dreamed it could be. He was a hero, saving the galaxy, like he'd always wanted. And I was proud, I was _so_ proud.

But I knew the realities of war, despite the fact that it hadn't really touched Tatooine. I knew that heroes like Anakin are too often reckless. That there is a very fine line between a celebrated hero and a venerated and mourned--

I dreaded the day when the report would come that Jedi General Anakin Skywalker had been slain.

 

* * *

 

_Obi-Wan_

 

It took me nearly three weeks after arriving on Tatooine to finally locate Shmi Skywalker. Her stepson told me she had relocated to Mos Espa, but despite the city being smaller than most settlements that claimed that name, finding one woman--one I had never met--proved more a challenge than I expected.

The first sun had set, and the second was just touching the horizon, when I arrived at her home; Luke asleep in a sling on my chest. I tapped twice on the door, running over in my head what I was going to say to her. I had never really done this before, though I had observed--Jedi don't have families, don't have a next of kin to inform, nor do clones; the rest of the military had their own system for notifications. I only hoped I didn't botch this as thoroughly as I had--

The door opened.

Shmi was not what I had expected. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, with none of her son's height and a weary air that I couldn't quite quantify.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

All the words I had prepared, culled from formulaic death notification calls I had witnessed, hovering in the background in case there were questions I could answer, flew out of my head.

_How can there be a formula for this?_

I swallowed a little. "Shmi Skywalker?" I asked.

"Yes?"

Luke stirred a little against my chest. Reflexively, my hand went to him. "My name is--" _Ben, you have to say Ben, you need to get used to the name_ "--Ben Kenobi. I need...I'm here about your son."

Her eyes widened just a fraction, and she shook her head minutely. I think she guessed--I could sense she knew the news wasn't...wasn't good.

But then she took a deep breath, visibly steeled herself, and stepped to one side. "Please," she said quietly, "come in."

 

* * *

 

_Shmi_

 

For a moment after I let him in, Kenobi and I were both quiet. I poured milk, as much for something to do with my hands while I waited for him to--

 _Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he isn't--Anakin_ can't _be--_

"Tell me what happened," I finally said, after Kenobi toyed with his cup for a few minutes.

He blinked. "I..." He trailed off for another moment, then took a deep breath and started. "I'm so sorry to have to report this, madam, but your son...your son is...Anakin is dead."

A part of me had known--had known from the moment the rumors started to reach Tatooine, about a Jedi plot and the sudden end of the war.

Another part had known when this man appeared on my doorstep, with an unspoken, guarded pain buried in his eyes.

But until he told me, until the words hung in the air, inescapable, it didn't--I couldn't--

"No," I whispered. "No..."

"I'm so sorry," Kenobi said, helpless.

I turned away.

_Anakin is dead._

I hadn't cried when he left, and I couldn't--even now, I couldn't--

Some moments are simply too large for tears.

_Anakin is dead. I'm so sorry._

Some moments are too large for anything else.

 

* * *

 

_Obi-Wan_

 

I could feel her crying silently, and, as if summoned by the bleak, hollow despair echoing out of her, my own grief, my own--

I lost track of how long we sat there, silent, each of us wrapped up in our own thoughts, our own memories.

It was Luke who finally broke the silence between us, coming fully awake with a whimper.

Shmi stiffened a little, then turned back to me. "I think your son is hungry," she said, quietly. Her eyes were bright, but she was composed on the surface, at least.

"Oh!" With care, I extracted him from the sling. "Yes, you're probably--you're probably right. But he's not mine, he's..."

She blinked once, then looked down at the increasingly unhappy child, then back at me. " _Oh,_ " she breathed, then held out her arms silently.

I placed him gently in her arms, and she just held him for a moment, studying his face, before moving over to the counter to warm up some of the milk for him. "What's his name?"

"Luke," I told her.

She settled back into her hair, feeding Luke with a great deal more skill than I ever had. "Where is...where is his mother?"

_There is good in him._

I closed my eyes against the memory. "She...died. While giving birth."

She let out a faint breath, then turned her attention back to the baby.

 

* * *

 

_Shmi_

 

I let the silence stretch between us, until Luke was sated and quiet again.

"Were you close?" I finally asked, looking back up at Kenobi, who was watching the two of us with an unspeakable weary sadness.

He didn't need to ask who I meant. "Yes."

"Were you with him, when...?"

"...yes."

I took a deep breath, and braced myself, resisting the urge to clutch Luke tighter, and possibly wake him again. "Tell me what happened, please?"

For a moment, Kenobi closed his eyes, and didn't answer. When he finally spoke, he chose his words with obvious care. "There was...there was a confrontation on a volcanic planet. Mustafar. A...a Sith Lord, named Darth Vader, he..." He took a breath. "He betrayed and murdered your son. And I didn't...I wasn't...I failed him," he said. "I wasn't able to...to prepare him, or protect him, from what the Sith did."

"You were his teacher?" I guessed.

He nodded.

 _What happened to the other Jedi?_ I wondered. _The one who took him away?_

But there could only be one answer to that question, and I realized, before I asked it, that there were only so many deaths I could hear of in one day without breaking.

And I had my grandchild in my arms. I couldn't break. Not today.

 

* * *

 

_Obi-Wan_

 

I could have told her the entire truth. Perhaps I should have. I almost did.

But, in the end--and perhaps this was a weakness of mine--I simply couldn't do it. I couldn't tell her how I'd failed--how we'd _all_ failed--to see what Palpatine was until it was too late. I couldn't tell her how I'd failed to protect Anakin from himself. I couldn't tell her how, when I couldn't save him, I'd failed to even grant him the mercy of a quick death.

_The boy you trained, gone he is._

Let Shmi carry the memory of the boy we had both loved, now gone forever. Let her love for her son remain as untainted as it possibly could be.

Let Anakin's dying screams on Mustafar remain my private nightmare.

"What will become of Luke?" Shmi asked, after another silence.

Safer ground, here. These questions--I knew the answer to these questions. "He should remain with you. It will be...it will be safer for him."

"You think this Darth Vader may come for him?" Already, she was holding him closer, protecting him, in ways that I knew I could not.

"Not Vader," I assured her. "Vader is dead. But..."

She nodded her understanding.

I took a breath. "And I am...I am as much a target of these dangers as he is."

"I can't protect him," Shmi said.

"I'll stay close," I promised her. "Not so close as to draw attention to you, but close enough to help, if you need protection. I'll find a place to stay outside the city, where no one will find me."

She looked down at the boy, closed her eyes, and nodded.

 

* * *

 

_Shmi_

 

"I will move to Mos Eisley," I said, still with my eyes closed, Luke's weight warm in my arms. "No one knows me there. It will be easier than trying to explain a child appearing overnight. And it's closer to my stepson's farm."

"I'll find a home close to there, then," Kenobi said, then rose. "I should...I should go. I'll contact you, as soon as I've set up house."

"Of course. But--but before you go." I opened my eyes again and looked back up at him. "I would like...I would like to know more."

He looked stricken for a moment, and I shook my head.

"Not about..." I couldn't say it. Not the event, not even the name of the planet where it had happened. "I want to know how he lived. What kind of man he was."

Kenobi's eyes grew shadowed again, and he looked down at his hands. "Some other time, perhaps," he said.

"Some other time," I agreed.

He slipped out the door then, without giving me an opportunity to say anything else, or ask about the many things he had left unsaid.

But his grief--his grief was, in its way, almost as heavy as my own. At least...at least, in the end, Anakin had had a friend with him. He hadn't died...he hadn't died alone.

_Some other time._

Luke cooed a little in his sleep, and despite myself, I smiled a little. "We'll keep you safe, little one. Your father's friend and I."

My own voice echoed back to me, near a decade and a half in the past.

_Now, be brave, and don't look back. Don't look back._

I kissed Luke's forehead and did my best to follow my own advice, mentally making a list of everything I'd need for my grandson. Because it was easier than dwelling on the questions, and because it needed to be done.

The second sun had finished setting. The galaxy was a dark place, a cold one, after today. But Luke--Luke was a little piece of warmth in my arms.

A second son.

Careful not to jostle him too much, I stood up, settled him in a basket I lined with clean cloth--it would do until I found a proper cradle again--and started packing for Mos Eisley.


End file.
